Figure 1: Diagram of Usenet File Flow
for an overview of the entire file upload and download "cycle". It shows a hypothetical file going from the poster's computer to their news server, then
to your computer.

You need a newsreader to view the files on the news server. However,
some companies offer web-based access to the usenet groups so
you can simply use a web browser to view the files on the news
server.

You should
also understand that in order to post material in a format acceptable
for the Usenet, each file or part of a file is further broken up into
individual encoded text messages called segments.

You should
also understand that files larger than about 10 MB are broken up
into smaller parts using compression software, usually WinRAR and the
parts are called "RARs", before being posted to the newsgroup. Then
each part or RAR, will be further broken into segments.

Also, all
newsreaders will display the messages in threaded or un-threaded
view. This way, you can see if a file or a part of a file
is complete. In order to show this, each newsreader has a graphical
representation of the file or part of a file.

Look at Figure 1
to see an
overview of the file breakdown and encoding process.

To download
and upload posts to newsgroups, you need a special type of
software called a newsreader.

There are
many good newsreader programs available. Links for these programs can
be found in the sidebar to the right. Most can automatically download
and decode posts directly to your harddrive. Some allow you to
view images immediately by clicking on the post. There are varying
kinds of filters and sorting features to help you find stuff within a
newsgroup.

Beware!

Some
newsreaders also have built-in viewers, they will download, decode and
automatically show you the jpg or gif. This is important to understand
because you could get yourself in trouble. For example, you are in a
xxx group and you queue up a picture that has a non-descriptive
title but actually contains child porn. If you are viewing this child
porn, it is already on your hard drive and you will have broken the law
ie., be in possession of child porn. Can anyone say Gary Glitter or
Pete Townshend? Beware!

Like most
software some will fit your needs and preferences better than others.
Also, if you're like me, some software will just seem more intuitive
than others. It also probably won't hurt if you use the more common
newsreaders you will be able to find more help, tips and assistance.
Often in newsgroups you see impromtu questions and answers about how to
use various newsreaders best.

My
favourite newsreader is Xnews. It is a basic, no-nonsense newsreader.
It doesn't even come with an installation program which is not a big
deal because you just copy the program and files into a new directory,
create a shortcut and you're off and running. Xnews doesn't have an
image viewer built-in like the other popular newsreaders. I don't miss
this feature but you might.

Another popular newsreader is Free
Agent 1.2, freeware software (Agent 1.x is the commercial version) made
by Forte.

News Rover is another popular,
full featured newsreader with a built-in MP3 search engine.

Netscape
and Microsoft's Internet Explorer/Outlook Express have newsreaders
built-in which are perfectly fine for text messages but are lousy for
working with files.

In order to
find out what is in a particular newsgroup, it is helpful to use Google
to search for available content. Actually, Google newsgroups are a
great resource for learning how to do pretty anything.

Google
Groups is the best Usenet
search engine available. It used
to be called DejaNews.

Text
messages look just like an email. You can view them and reply to them.
The difference is that you post emails through email servers and news
posts through a news server.

Usenet and newsgroup files, which might be things like pictures, video, music or software
programs, are posted as text messages. However, the text messages
are not regular text messages but are solid blocks of gobbledly gook
ascii characters. The ascii characters represent the file encoded
as a text message so that it can be put onto a news server because
ascii text messages are the "language" of the Usenet. Encoding
translates code to ascii character based messages.

By far the
most common method of encoding files to the usenet groups is the
UUENCODE standard. Other formats for encoding files are Base64 and
BinHex encoding and there is a newer encoding process called yEnc is
being used more and more often. Note that your newsreader must be able
to interpret the new encoding format. So, for example, a popular
newsreader called Xnews was updated to include yEnc.

yEnc -
the yEncoder/yDecoder for Usenet

An
efficient and CRC protected encoding for Usenet messages. UU
encoded and BASE64 encoded messages are still standard on Usenet. There
are three general problems with these encodings - and the actual usage
of such encodings:

The various
files types will vary in size which will in turn affect how they
are posted. Larger files are broken into many equal sized parts
using compression software.

Generally,
graphics and photographs are small enough to be encoded in one message.
In effect, the file is one message.

An MP3 file
will be one file but composed of many messages that will "add
up" to one MP3 when decoded.

However,
larger files (eg, most movies, tv programs, software programs,
etc) are broken into parts using compression software prior to being
posted. The most common compression programs are WinRAR, Winzip or
WinAce although WinRAR is the most common.

You'll see
in Step
5: Decompress
'Zip/Unzip' more about how the
files are "broken" into parts
and reassembled back into the original file. For now just keep this in
mind when you are deciding what you want to download while viewing the
contents of a usenet groups.

Here are
three reasons for breaking large files into small chunks:

Reduce
Post Size
- The reason for using WinRAR or other archive programs is not to
compress the files although it is helpful to reduce size. The main
reasons are packaging and transfer efficiency.

Good
Housekeeping
- Packing a bunch of files into a WinRAR archive is good housekeeping
especially for sending across the internet.

Easier
Recovery
- Larger files are broken into parts because if you were to send
the entire file as one part you risk losing all of it if one or more of
the messages containing information are lost, damaged or otherwise
missing once they are posted on the news servers (which is a common
thing!). If you send a big file in many small parts, then you may lose
a few of the parts but you can just resend the missing parts not the
whole thing all over again. That is why you will see requests for
reposts in usenet groups all the time! Also, It takes less time
to repost small parts of a big multimedia file than to repost the
entire file. Also, too many people are still using slow-poke dial-up 56
k modems so you also have to consider the download speed from the
newsgroups. It is easier for these slow-pokes to download little chunks
at a time because their connection may break halfway through or they
may want to use their phone etc.

When a
file is posted to the news server it is broken up further into
smaller messages or segments. Most of the better newsreaders will
automatically "thread" or combine the individual segments into a
graphical representation of a file.

Threading
and the graphical representation of file parts is a key feature of a
newsreader which is almost essential if not terribly convenient.
Each newsreader has a different way of threading and graphically
representing the files. I personally like the way Xnews threads
and graphically represents files.

If you
wish, you can change the view to un-threaded so that you can see each
individual segment.

You would
do this to see if any encoded segment is lost or damaged so you could
decide if that file is worth downloading.